Elegy
by thewintersongs
Summary: Stranded on an unfriendly planet, a lone senshi struggles to find her way back to her planet before it is completely consumed by war.
1. Prelude

**Elegy**

_Stranded on an unfriendly planet, a lone senshi struggles to find her way back to her planet before it is completely consumed by war._

**Disclaimer: **_Bishoujou Senshi Sailor Moon_ is the property of Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha, Toei, and anyone else that the rights are licensed to. What's mine? The character ideas, story, and writing. Please don't sue me...I can only bargain in fabric scraps.

**Author's Notes:** The story that never got a definitive plot and came in a sudden burst of inspiration. It turned out a lot more melancholy than I had originally anticipated, but I was so enamored with it that I stayed up way too late writing.

* * *

**Prelude**

"_So proud she was to die__  
It made us all ashamed__  
That what we cherished, so unknown,__  
To her desire seemed."_  
-Emily Dickinson

* * *

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," a voice cooed.

Silence met the words, and each died in the other's embrace.

The speaker sighed huffily. "I know you're there. Hiding." They scoffed. "The great protector of our planet, hiding from a short girl that is most certainly weaker than her. Come out unless you want to be ashamed."

The person this girl hunted for did not dare to breathe, to move, to blink, as she watched her huntress pace up and down the room, bloodied silver knife in hand. Behind this pillar, she would be safe, at least until the girl decided to look behind them. Could she take her by surprise, then? Swallowing, the person clenched her fists. It would be alright.

Someone ran into the room and, catching sight of the red streaking the knife, cried out, "what have you done to her!?"

The girl grinned wickedly. "_Her?_ Oh, I've done nothing to _her._ Not yet, at least." She stroked the knife's blade. "You see, that woman you worshipped? She's hiding from a little girl like me. Afraid! Of me!" she cackled.

The other person said nothing as the girl advanced on him.

"But you, I think," the girl purred, wrapping her arms around him and holding the knife to his neck. "You could help draw...her..."

Behind the pillar, the woman knew it was time to act. She stepped out, into the open.

Prey met predator's eye, and smiled.

"...out," she finished, pronouncing the word carefully, lips curling around the sound as she slit the man's throat.

He fell to the floor, scarlet spilling across the once-flawless cool gray stone.

The woman knew she was at a disadvantage. She knew she couldn't win. But she would try, wouldn't she? Meanwhile, a man she'd been so close to, the man who'd raised her, was bleeding out, beyond all hope of salvation.

The girl walked towards her. The woman licked her lips.

"Alena...please...don't. Please," she whispered, voice trembling. "Just end this. If you kill me the war will never end."

Alena smiled impishly. "I want the war to go on, dear Princess Mariele. That's why I need to kill you. You see, you're Sailor Imbrium. With you alive, there's still a great chance that my side won't succeed."

Sailor Imbrium pressed a hand to her mouth. She wasn't in control, she knew, stripped already of her powers by Alena's poison. Without the ability to use her attacks, she couldn't beat Alena, who was faster, smaller, more agile, and, more importantly, better at physical fighting.

"Alena," she begged. "We were friends."

The girl drew the words out slow over her lips as she stood directly in front of Imbrium. "_Were,"_ she murmured. "But not now. As you're giving up without a fight." She raised the knife, gleaming in the torchlight.

Sailor Imbrium closed her eyes, preparing herself for what she knew was coming. _I'm sorry._

But then someone else ran in. Alena jerked back. "Who is it?" she asked, annoyance edging her tone.

"Alena," someone said harshly. "You know that wasn't the plan."

Alena rolled her eyes. "I wasn't _going_ to!" she complained. "I was just having some fun freaking her out."

Sailor Imbrium had no idea what was happening as she looked from Alena, who was reaching into her pocket now, to the man at the door, who she recognized as well...or thought she did....

And she had little time to react as Alena produced a multi-colored stone from her pocket and threw it at Sailor Imbrium, light flaring from it just before it touched her.

"Have fun on your new planet!" were the last cackling words Sailor Imbrium heard before she felt herself being squeezed into what felt like nothingness.


	2. Guidance

**Chapter 1: Guidance**

"_Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?"_  
-Walt Whitman, _Are You The New Person, Drawn Towards Me?_

* * *

When she came to, Sailor Imbrium was lying on warm, rough stone, and she heard voices.

Warmth caressed her face, and light, buttery golden light, filled her eyesight when she opened them.

Sensations so foreign to her, and yet so pleasant.

She rolled over onto her back, taking in as much of the warmth as she could.

That was when she noticed that the people were nothing at all like those she'd met before. Their clothes were strange, their speech was strange, their expressions were strange. They looked at her oddly and jabbered.

One man leaned towards her and said something incomprehensible. He looked at her as if he'd just asked a question.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand yo-" Imbrium began, before he interrupted her to say something else.

"I don't understand you. I'm sorry." She got to her feet. "I'm fine, though."

She pushed her way through them, needing to get away, because her memories were returning.

_Blood. Rain. Light._

As images began to solidify and stop changing, Imbrium felt like throwing up. _No. No._

She started to run. _I need to go back. I need to get back there. Where am I? Where is this place?_

Absorbed in her thoughts, Imbrium paid little attention to where she was going, clattering down staircases and running across avenues with strange-looking vehicles that moved on their own and blared noises at her when she ran in front of them. She couldn't understand the signs, the buildings looked far too cold and uninviting, and everything was so different.

The light was beginning to fade, and so was the warmth, bleeding away into the sky. Imbrium longed for it to stop. _No. Don't leave me. I need the light. Don't go._

At last, a familiar sight as Imbrium looked into the sky and saw gray clouds beginning to gather together. She stood there for a minute, a tiny bit relaxed, before it began to rain, softly at first, and then in heavy sheets.

Imbrium closed her eyes. _Send me back._

A voice spoke to her, something she couldn't understand. Imbrium shook her head.

The voice spoke again—but this time, she could understand it.

"What are you doing, standing there like that?"

Imbrium opened her eyes and looked at the speaker.

It was a girl a few years younger than she, with lank brown hair and dull brown eyes. Her skin was pale, and her clothes as strange as the rest, yet Imbrium could understand her.

The girl wanted an answer. "Well? Do you understand me now?" she asked.

Sailor Imbrium looked down at her hands. "I do," she began slowly. "And I'm not quite sure what I'm doing. I'm...I'm lost."

The girl clicked her tongue. "That doesn't mean you need to stand in the rain. Come with me to my place." She grabbed Imbrium's hand, who had no choice but to follow.

"My name's Dietlinde," she supplied. "What's yours?" She reached into her bag and extricated a bundle of red cloth with a handle at one end.

"Mariele," Imbrium told her, and jumped away as the bundle suddenly opened up into a circle on a long stick. Dietlinde raised an eyebrow at her as she raised the cloth above them.

"It's just an umbrella, haven't you seen one before?" she asked.

Imbrium looked up at it in delight. It was deflecting the rain from them. "No, I haven't. But it's ingenious."

Dietlinde chose not to comment on this, instead coughing lightly. "Right. It's a short walk to my apartment."

"What's an apartment?" Imbrium asked curiously as they crossed a street. This time, none of the strange carriages blared at them, instead stopping to let them cross.

Dietlinde sighed. _She's either lived under a rock her entire life, or she's absolutely mental. _"It's basically a set of rooms that belong to me in a building with more sets of rooms that belong to other people."

Imbrium smiled. "Oh, like a suite!"

"Yeah...like that, I suppose."

They walked along in silence. Imbrium took this time to look around her and absorb what she was seeing. She now had to admit that some of the buildings and gardens were rather beautiful, although many were quite ugly. Yet for all her admiration, the senshi had to admit that nothing came close to matching the beauty of what she'd seen on the planet whose name she bore.

Dietlinde arrived at a tall building. She folded the umbrella up again and opened a door, gesturing for Imbrium to go inside, who did.

The inside of the building smelled rather damp. The room they stood in had a soft green plush fabric covering the floor, and the rooms were a lighter shade of green. A set of staircases spiraled up several floors, and on one wall hung a strange-looking object divided into squares with tiny keyholes on each one and a name written on them.

Dietlinde pulled out a small key and opened one of the squares, taking out a few pieces of paper before closing it again. Imbrium raises an eyebrow at it, confused, but Dietlinde didn't notice.

"I live up on the third floor," she said, beginning to walk up the stairs. Imbrium followed her up them to a door marked with symbols she didn't recognize.

Pushing the door open, Dietlinde sighed, "well, home sweet home, Mariele. At least until we get you to your real home."

Imbrium stepped inside, but the last words rolled over her like a sheet of rain. "I don't...I can't go back to my real home," she murmured quietly as Dietlinde pushed past her and sat on a couch.

The girl looked up at her. "What? Can't go to your real home?" She pushed herself up. "What happened?"

Sailor Imbrium sighed. "It's a long story."

Dietlinde opened her mouth, as if she were going to say something, then closed it and nodded. "Okay, we can talk about it later. Right now I'm going to get you a towel and some dry clothes." She leaped off of the couch, then seemed to remember something. She spoke to Imbrium with an apologetic tone. "Please don't move off of the mat, I can't get the carpet too wet." Then she left.

Obeying the request, Imbrium resigned herself to standing still and looking around. So many odd things in one small place! The floor and walls were a different color here—yellow for the floor and white for the walls—and besides the couch, there were many other things. A table, another table with a large black box on top of it, a green-colored thing that looked like a tablet sitting on the first table. The yellow floor gave way to a different kind of floor that was white and had a strange sheen. In this area were cupboards, a tall white thing, and a squatter white thing with four metal spirals on the top. A silver basin was sunk into the cupboards.

Imbrium had no more time to look around as Dietlinde returned, carrying a clothing similar to what she wore and a fluffy towel. "The clothes might be a bit big and short, you're a lot taller than I am," she told her. "You can go into the bathroom to change, by the way. Over there." She pointed.

"It's okay. And thanks." Imbrium walked in the direction her hostess was pointing, hurrying so as to not drip too much onto the floor, or carpet, or whatever it was called.

Shutting the door of the bathroom, Imbrium found herself in a tiny, cramped room with a basin sunk into a cupboard, a funny-looking white thing on the floor, and a white tub on one end of the room with a flower-patterned curtain hanging in front of it. A mirror hung over the basin.

Toweling herself dry, Sailor Imbrium willed herself to de-transform, becoming once more just plain Mariele. _Not plain. Princess._

She raised an eyebrow at the clothes. A shirt, pants, underwear, and a bra, all in a strange cut and style. But she slipped them on either way, running her fingers through her still-damp hair.

Returning to the living room, Mariele was greeted by Dietlinde making a strange strangled sort of sound.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Dietlinde shook her head, smiling tightly. "Nothing."

An awkward silence permeated the room. Then, Dietlinde coughed. "Your hair's blue."

Mariele put a hand up to her hair, which was indeed blue and straight, two long wisps perpetually framing her face. "Is that unusual for this place?"

"Yeah, it is. Most people have brown, or blonde, or black hair...sometimes red. Older people have gray hair. I thought yours was just a weird shade of black when it was wet."

Mariele compared herself mentally with Dietlinde. Blue hair, blue eyes the same color, very pale skin with the slightest tinge of gray owing to the lack of light on Imbrium. Taller, with a rather slight form. Previously she'd been wearing her uniform, which was definitely much different than the clothes she'd seen so far.

Was she really that different from these people?

"Is it dyed?"

Mariele, coming out of her musings, raised an eyebrow at Dietlinde and her question.

The girl persisted. "I'm asking if you dyed it. You know, colored it."

"Of course not! This is my natural color."

"Riiight. Why don't you come sit down?" Dietlinde patted the seat next to her on the couch, choosing not to press the hair issue anymore.

Walking across the room, Mariele questioned, "Where am I?"

"Uh, my apartment which is in Vienna. How do you not know you're here?"

"Vienna? Where's that? I like the name."

_A total nutcase,_ Dietlinde decided, but decided to humor her guest. "Austria."

"And where's Austria?"

"Europe, which is on Earth...you know, big green and blue planet, only one known to have life on it."

"That's not true!" Mariele objected. "My planet has life on it."

Another awkward silence. Dietlinde stared at Mariele, who started to squirm in her seat. Then, she spoke.

"Okay, sure. I mean, I said the only one _known,_ there could be-" she stopped talking and shook her head. "Anyways, as long as you know me, you can jut call med Lind, for short. Dietlinde's a little long."

Mariele nodded. Dietlinde pressed on with her questions. "So why were you just standing around out there?"

"I told you, I didn't know what I was doing or where I was."

Lind nodded. "Okay. Hey, do you want a drink? I have water, milk, and cranberry juice." She stood.

"I'll try the last one. I've never had it before but it sounds delicious," Mariele replied with a smile. Raising an eyebrow yet again—_at this rate it's going to be stuck there_—Lind walked over to the area with the different floor. She opened the tall white thing and pulled out a jug filled with dark red juice. Opening a cupboard, she took out two glasses and poured the juice into them. Kneeing the door of the thing she'd taken the juice from, Lind carried the glasses over and handed one to Mariele.

"So, I'd really like to know the truth," Dietlinde told Mariele, taking a long sip of her drink. Mariele took a small drink and winced at the bitterness, but not wanting to seem impolite, willed herself to keep drinking it. "I mean, why are you here and why don't you understand what anyone's saying?"

Mariele wrapped her hands around her glass, feeling the condensation. "I can't answer the second one, because I don't know myself. And I'm not here by any choice of mine."

Another cough. Lind folded herself up onto her seat. She studied Mariele closely. "Are you sure you don't know? I mean, do you remember any men in white coats or anything?"

"Men...in white...coats?"

"Yeah, you know, like the ones that come to take you to the asylum."

"Asylum?"

"That place where the crazy people go."

Mariele tilted her head at Lind, mulling over the question before shaking her head. "I don't think I was ever in a place like that."

"Are you su-okay, never mind. So you said you can't go home?"

"Right."

Lind took another drink. "So let me get this straight. You're...from another planet. And you're stuck here against your will."

Mariele nodded. Lind heaved a heavy sigh. "Okay, that makes sense," she commented, disbelief etched into her words. Mariele said nothing as Lind continued. "So you need a place to stay, I'm assuming?"

A nod. Lind smiled tightly. "You can stay here. In exchange for one thing."

Mariele eyed her suspiciously. "What?"

"A good story. Ever since I dropped out of college I haven't heard a good one. But I imagine, being from another planet and all, that you've got some good ones."

The woman nodded, slowly. "I guess so."

Lind looked at her. "Is it a deal, then? You don't have to tell me any now, you can tell me tomorrow or whatever."

Mariele smiled at her gratefully. "I'll do that, then. Just right now, I want to sleep."

Lind stood. "I don't have any other beds, but you can sleep here on the couch. I'll go get you some blankets and a pillow." Setting her glass down, she went over to a narrower door and opened it, revealing a closet. She pulled a few blankets and a pillow off of one of the shelves, and took them over to her guest. "Here you go."

Accepting them, Mariele smiled up at her. "Thanks for putting up with me," she said, sipping her juice once more and setting it down on the table.

In response, Lind pulled anxiously at her shirt hem. She wasn't used to have guests. "It's okay. I'll get your glass for you." She took it over to the silver basin and dumped the juice into it, then pulled a lever on the basin. Water poured out of what looked like a second lever, and Mariele smiled at it as Lind poured water into the glass and dumped it out, rinsing it and setting it down in the basin. She returned to the couch.

"If you need anything, you can ask me," she told Mariele, who was pulling a blanket over the couch and propping the pillow up. The room had turned dark, and Lind went over to the two windows, pulling curtains across them. "I'm going to be up for a little bit longer, my room's there." She pointed to the last of the doors that branched off the main room.

Mariele nodded, laying down on the couch and pulling a blanket over her. It wasn't the most comfortable, but right now, she was so very tired. Lind left the room, and the lost princess and guardian of Imbrium was left alone to fall into confused dreams where rain fell from a lever in the sky and carriages moved over the roofs of buildings.


End file.
